Rest

Coming Home to Where I’ve Always Been

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In March of 2017 I was beginning my Sabbath leave and a three-month ‘Retreat in Daily Life’, with Jesus’s birth narratives as my starting point in prayer. Using imaginary prayer, I was sitting around the campfire with shepherds, and as the sky filled with angels I leapt to my feet. A hand lifted me through the angels and brought me off stage. I could see the whole world, and the Jesus story as a play on the world stage. I was no longer a part of it but was in the wings watching the drama unfold. Turning, I saw a door marked ‘Director’s Office’ and I was invited to enter. Inside, I knew a presence telling me to rest, for I wasn’t needed on stage.

That was five years ago. The image and message are still alive for me. My new life in BC began as an ‘off stage’, quiet life. Sometimes it got busy but then I would quieten it again. Today something different happened. I realized how being in the Director’s Office is a sacred and holy place, yet I haven’t been focused on the Director. My ears, eyes, body are always turning to what’s happening on stage. I’m here, in this fabulous, wonderful, holy place, called by Spirit to be with our Director and I’m not focused there for I’m still turning to the distractions of the world.

I’m stunned at the awareness. I need to capture that treasure and not loose it.

I feel so graced to become aware of the gift of being in the Directors Office, and the gift of realizing that I haven’t been valuing the gift, for I have continued to be distracted by the noise on stage. I know I’m repeating myself, but I need to hear the truth. Too often I let truths blow away in the wind. I want to stay present to the Director in my everyday life. My night dreams are still full of the noise on the stage reflecting how much I’m still entangled in it.

Today I turn to Jesus and speak with him…..I’m so grateful to you.  Do I try your patience? It’s been years that I’ve been in the Director’s Office and years I haven’t always respected your call. I am so sorry. I have been as a child, naughty and distracted. I want to learn to be HERE with you. The trees have told me to be still ever since I arrived. I’ve paid some attention, but not enough. Help me keep my focus on The Director. That’s my calling, to use my will, my reason, my wisdom in focusing on You, Loving One. And I know that even as my eyes wandered back into the rush of life, you never took your eyes off me, for I am your child. I have returned home to where I’ve always been, living in your Loving…..

And you Gentle Reader. Are you wandering and now ready to return home? What might be your distractions that keep your focus off your Creator?  What keeps you rushing instead of resting and trusting?

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion with the Rivendell Way

Society member of Shalem

The Sun and I

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Do you ever have a ‘special encounter’ that just makes your day? Yesterday I had one of those with Our Sun.

Most mornings I walk the watershed road behind our home. It twists through the forest for about a kilometre, past a couple of houses, the warning sign about Bears, the trail head that goes deep into the forest, and our local reservoir. The road doesn’t stop, but there is a formidable fence that marks the area that is declared ‘no-go’ for we get our village water supply from the mountain stream that is in the protected area.

I stop my morning walk just before the gate near some beautiful boulders and of course, handsome trees. I admit a particular fondness for one fir, but I’m an equal lover of trees. From my vantage point I can see Mt Harvey behind the trees and one of The Lions straight ahead. There are two mountains the Brit’s named ‘The Lions’ that give our village its name. The indigenous people named them ‘The Sisters’ and tell the story of two sisters who were peacemakers giving their lives so tribes could be united. The tall, commanding mountains are ‘The Sisters’ to remind us of peacemaking and brotherhood. I’m grateful for that story and naming, but the world around calls them ‘The Lions’.

Yesterday morning as I stood before one of ‘The Sisters’, I watched the sun rise over her shoulder. I was there for those few moments when our earth tipped, and our sun appeared to shine upon us. Her light was breath-taking, warm and full.

I spent the day in gentle daily activities that included trail making and seawall walking, reading, chatting with Hugh and cooking. Hugh chose to set our dinner table on the front deck. We are fortunate to live where we have lots of nature around us. I think I’ve written frequently on how much it means to me to live surrounded by forest, with creek flowing below and Howe Sound spread before me. Our front deck gives an open view of Howe Sound, some islands and the mountains of the mainland. Hugh and I settled in to enjoy our meal in the most beautiful ‘dining room’ possible.

As we finished eating and lingered chatting, the sun was streaming across the Sound. It was brilliant, so bright I couldn’t look at it. The sun’s radiance filled the sky and shone off the water, filling the air above it. I realized that the sun was about to disappear. We watched as the earth continued her tipping and said good-bye to the sun with her radiance. In the pause after her descent, we both began to sing the song of our youth, ‘Day is done, gone the sun, from the lakes, from the hills, from the sky. All is well. Safely rest. God is nigh.’

In one day, I had said ‘Good Morning’ and ‘Good Night’ to our sun. My simple day had been bracketed by Light, Radiant Light. As I transition into a different season of life, a season of stillness and reflection, a season of a small circle, I found my life being held by the sun and its sustaining power, by the universal warmth of the sun. I felt the eternal ‘yes’ on my simple life. It’s not for me to determine my life, yet it is for me to live my life well, fully expressing my heart longings within it.

We  walk on our earth, as it spins its way through the galaxy and turns on its axis around the sun. Tiny upon the earth. Humbly significant within the cosmos. Each day simple. Each day unrepeatable. Each day precious.

May you live today well, honest and grounded in your very best life.

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder

Footprints in the Sand

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After writing about my imperfections last week and how I was STUCK in memoir writing…. This week I was sharing with a Dear One about being stuck when suddenly I became unstuck! What if…. my manuscript was already complete?? What if… I don’t have to write The Best Book Ever???

The longing I originally discerned was to write my spiritual story so my family could have it. They don’t’ really know who I am and I wanted them to know me. Well, I’ve done that. I’ve crafted my story around seven encounters with God, added in my reflections on the meaning of those encounters and given them some contemplative practices that have helped shaped my life. I’ve done what was on my heart to do. If any of them read it, they would both recognize me and know me more deeply.

Sometimes I take what I’m given to do and then EXPLODE it into something more.  I let the simple task I’m given get bigger and bigger and even bigger. I have a tendency to think I have to save the whole world rather than love the person who is closest to me. Do you catch my drift?? Does that ever happen to you? We think we must leave some mega footprints on the beach of life, whereas we’re just to live simply, lightly with small footprints. Some part of my untended ego wants to expand jobs and make them bigger, wants to save the world. I think it just wants to be noticed and hugged, but it feels it will only get attention if its noisy, or BIG, or IMPORTANT.

So, now I’m holding the idea that my first draft is actually my completed manuscript. I can print it out and tuck it away for my family to find someday. If I want to play with it, finding different voices for my different ages, or expressing more emotion through the stories or editing it, I can do that for fun, but I don’t have to. I have completed the task that I was given by the desire of my heart. My footprint can be small. I don’t have to run all over the beach leaving lots of footprints. I can just walk simply to the water’s edge and swim, relaxed and enjoying life.

For me, that’s a vastly different way to live. I’m glad I’m never too old to learn.

I hope you can know and be content with your footprint too.

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder

Leftovers!

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Sometimes I can be a driven person who needs everything to be done the Right Way which equals My Way! Anybody else out there like that?!

Last week a friend shared a dream where she was in the kitchen of a retreat centre watching people rush to serve leftovers to retreatants. The leaders rushed into the kitchen, grabbed leftovers from the fridge, tossed them into the microwave and hurried out to serve them to the retreatants. “No!” she shouted within herself. She wanted them to slow down, cook a meal and properly serve people. But the retreatants felt they were full, nourished and happy with the microwaved leftovers.  All was well. Even though she wanted to give them a carefully prepared home cooked meal, they were well satisfied with leftovers. God was in the leftovers.

I’m so grateful for her dream. It’s easy for me to get caught in the vice of things being done a specific way, the right way, My Way. Her dream calls me back to relaxing, letting go of my own agendas and letting things unfold. Years ago, I learnt that God works within what I would name as our imperfections, mistakes and even hurtful behaviours. God doesn’t require Anne’s strict guidelines of a ‘good’ process to work.  God is always present, even when it looks to me like Trouble with a capital ‘T’.  My job is to TRUST God is always present, keep myself within the Holy Creek flow of LOVE, no matter what is happening around me and keep my eyes open for Spirit LIFE.

So the next time you take leftovers out of the fridge….maybe you can recall that God is in the leftovers. God can use our leftovers when that’s all we’ve got to offer. How big and wonderful is our God. How little and humble are we.

Time to relax, lie back in my hammock, and listen for the tapping of the Spirit.

Happy listening to you.

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder

 

I’ve Got Space Now!

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A couple of conversations this week drifted into the area of spaciousness in our lives. Some people were finding that the pandemic lifestyle was allowing their lives to be more spacious. Others were finding space through a releasing of old connections and responsibilities; a bit of soul-cleaning was taking place. And then there was me! This week life felt so full. In the midst of our shutdown, have I managed to let my old busy habits fill my days again?

Walking the mountain this morning, I pondered the feelings of spaciousness and fullness. Each step on the mountain road was so beautiful. The rain fell gently. The still forest held a deep green secret. The evergreens were tipped with light green showing the brand-new edges of their branches. Step by step. Moment by moment climbing the mountain road. Spaciousness and fullness. Solid mountain, flowing river. Deep green. New growth green.

My life is spacious. I haven’t filled it up again. Besides home life and garden, I have two projects which give me joy. I realized that I feel full when I let don’t close those projects after working on them. My favorite tech support said to me one day that I leave a lot of docs open on my desktop. Yeah, I don’t clear them away when I’m finished! My desktop can get quite cluttered. Same for my life. It can feel full, cluttered and pressured if I allow projects to creep into another time. I seek to live moment to moment. Doing one thing at a time calmly, serenely, saturated with peace and fully focused. One thing at a time. One step at a time. I like living that way. I’m not overwhelmed. I’m not listening to the voices around me, only to the voice within me. Voices around me shout, ‘Do this. NOW. You have so much to do. Do this.’ But the voice within me doesn’t shout, doesn’t pressure, but simply guides. ‘Ah this. Right now. This.’

When I listen and follow the inner voice, I have space. It feels so good. I know when I’m listening to the ‘out-there’ voices. They make me feel pressured or trapped or not enough. When I listen within, to the tapping of my heart, I’ve got space, plenty of space.

As our fourth month of pandemic restrictions comes nears an end, how are you doing? Are you feeling spacious or full, grounded or overwhelmed? What adjustments have shaped your life? How are you living with them?

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder

Lying in a Hammock

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The world’s in upheaval this week Anne. How can you write about lying in a hammock? What if I said to you that it is a Hammock of Love?

This week the affirmation I’ve been working with is “Relax and cast aside all mental burdens, allowing God to express through me his perfect love, peace and wisdom.” Holy Creek Stuff! It speaks to me of one of the foundational truths that I received in Proverbs 3.5-6: “Trust in the Lord your God with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path.” The teaching of both is in alignment. What if I relaxed, let go of negative mental thoughts, of the planning, sorting out, explaining – all that stuff that goes on mentally. What if I didn’t lean on my intellectual ponderings? What if I relaxed like lying in a hammock and let God move through me? What if…..

I’ve just finished the first draft of my spiritual memoirs. It’s been a thoughtful experience. One of the places I got caught was when I was recounting a story from 1990. During that period, I experienced a call into ministry. From that call there was much spiritual nourishment in the class that I oversaw, but at the same time there was pain and chaos at home. I began to ask more clearly why didn’t that flow of love, peace and wisdom go into my home life? Why was it only channeled into my class life? Or was it in my home but I couldn’t see it?

Today I can see that the Holy Creek was flowing but that there were blocks, big rocks that stopped the easy flow into my home life. I wasn’t relaxed at home. I carried a lot of mental burdens around the house. At home I felt I wasn’t a good enough mom, wife or human being. Those are Huge Mental Burdens to carry! I didn’t know how to cast those aside, so I kept lugging them around everyday. I’d get to my class and walk into a world where I was enjoyed and respected. It was a very different atmosphere. Holy Creek was always flowing, but sometimes my mental rocks disrupted its flow.

Now imagine with me a world where we all, or even many of us, relaxed into a Hammock of Love.  We cast aside our negative thought patterns and received the truth about ourselves, that we are, each one of us, a child of God, created in the image of Divine Love, Peace and Wisdom. We can relax and let Love be expressed through us. Then, maybe then, we’ll find the healing pathway for the world so Rule of Love can be our way.

The world needs us now, more than ever to be our fullest self, so my friends relax today in the Hammock of Love and let God express through you, Divine Love, Peace and Wisdom.

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder

 

 

Hidden Beauty

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I think I told you that we’re working on a trail from our home to the creek below us. I’ve found that my job, has been to tidy the forest around the trail. Doesn’t that sound odd?  Why would you tidy a forest? For years, the forest and those in the home have tossed branches down the hillside. I did it myself last year when a windstorm blew branches all around the decks. I just tossed them over edge into the forest below us. That’s just fine, till someone gets the idea to make a trail down the hillside to the creek! Suddenly all those branches become visible and many need to be moved to clear space for the trail.

As I began to clear the branches, I realized that not only the narrow trail needed to be cleared, but I wanted the space around the trail to be open too. That’s when I began to tidy the forest. Others are working away sawing trees, digging out rocks, grading a path and building steps. I’m climbing over rocks tossing branches over the cliff-side. I started at the top area just below the house and have been making my way towards the creek.

The first few areas near the house were amazing. Simply removing the loose branches revealed a delightful forest garden right by our home. As I made my way down the hillside I found more treasures; a huge stump with ivy tumbling over it, a massive rock partly covered in moss, two more huge rocks with tree stumps tucked between them and a moss covered hillside that was flecked with starburst flowers. As the mess of odd branches was removed the beauty of the forest began to shine through. Next trail making day I’ll get out my clippers and tidy up the ferns. Underneath all that clutter there was and is a beautiful forest garden.

Isn’t that an image of life? What’s underneath the clutter of our activities, underneath the knot of old tapes in our minds, underneath the weight of ambitions and pressures? I know there is a beautiful forest garden within each of us. Too often our beauty is covered by a lot of clutter that we’ve accumulated or let others dump on us. But we are beautiful. Each person around you is beautiful. Can you see your own beauty? Can you see the beauty in the one beside you? What is the clutter that can be removed so you can behold the beauty within yourself and the one nearest you? God is always present, ready to help de-clutter.

May you use these days well.

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder

 

 

Holy Creek!

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Just below our home is a creek. We live on a mountainside, so there is a steep hill of about a hundred yards down to the creek. But we can hear it! The snow is melting and it’s raining today so the creek is full and flowing well. I love standing near a creek, a brook or a river and watching it tumble over rocks. I love the movement. I’m told there is something healthy for us, something we humans breath into our physical nature through the flow of water. I’m not a scientist so I don’t know much about that, but I do know that I feel satisfied and refreshed when I pause near flowing water.

This week one of my readings reminded me of the continuous presence of God that flows through me. There is a constant flow of light, love, peace, joy, of all the nature of our omnipresent Creator. All of that is flowing through me. That feels so good to me. As I moved through my daily activities this week, I’ve been pausing to recall God’s flow through me. Just as my creek keeps flowing, so our Creator’s Nature of peace, joy, forgiveness keeps flowing through me. And you. As I slow down and recall that, I consciously open myself to that flow. Oh, that feels so good. And then I imagine the flow coming through you too. That feels good too.

I’m so grateful to live beside a creek. I’m so grateful for the flow of God’s Creek within me and within you. Come Holy Creek, flow freely today.

 

 

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder

Dare I Say It?

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Dare I say it? I’m enjoying staying at home. I know it is a time of suffering and sadness. On many levels people are in pain, physically, emotionally, economically. So much has been turned upside down.  I do know that. And I know I’m not a single working mom who is having to look after her children and pay the bills. For many it’s a hugely painful time. Yet…

I’m also relieved to have the world slow down. I love stepping out on my porch at 7.00pm when our village starts it’s ‘Noisy Thank You’. One neighbour who can’t play the trumpet leads the way with a blast on his horn. Then all around the village you can hear the clamor. We’ve all been tucked away in our homes and come together for those few minutes of shared noise. Yes, we’re all still here and we all still care.

It seems to me that normally the world is too busy. I’ve known times in my life when my overwork took me to a place of overwhelm and exhaustion. I had to pull away from life and recoup. Are we experiencing a global nervous breakdown from our obsessive overworking/over achieving/over accumulating life style?

I like staying home. I’ve enjoyed finding my new rhythm. It’s still based in prayer/study/action. It just looks a little different. I’m not sure I want to give it up and return to all the driving and groups I normally attend. I like a quiet life.

I found this quote from Rumi: Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.

A time of enforced quiet gives me time to ponder. What do I really want in my life? What do I, at this particular season, really need? And to listen deeply. It may feel strange.

Our shared experience of social distancing is really an Easter experience. We’re all being given the opportunity to die and then to rise again. We’re letting go of our jobs, securities, even our dreams. We’ve let go of old ways of behaving, old routines. Now we have a chance to begin something new, to allow new life to mature within us. What will we look like when we emerge from the experience of our current separation? What is silently drawing us from deep within our hearts?

I hope you’re able to find some goodness in these days, some kindness, some gratitude and carry some hope for what will emerge.  If you are one of the ones who is suffering during this time, I hope you can find someone to support you as you accept what is happening and make the changes that are right for you.

May you know the new life of Easter.

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada (Founder)

Early Lessons from the Virus Time

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Does it feel to you like we’ve been invaded by an alien being from outer space? Our world has been shaken upside down in the last few weeks as the coronavirus, it’s containment and fear has spread around the globe. I know there are always lessons to be learnt from life, so I’ve begun to consider the lessons from this invasion. It’s still early days so I’m sure lessons will evolve, but here are a few I’m considering.

Humility – I hope we, all the people on our planet, will be open to learning this lesson. We are not in control. We watch it strike the rich and the poor. We are a vulnerable species. Let’s live more simply, humbly.

Resilient and Resourceful – We are resourceful. We can be flexible and respond to a challenge. We can discover what is needed and will find a medical aid to help us. It is one of our wonders that we can be both humble and resilient. We can hold both at the same time. We need not be black and white thinkers, who strut in our problem-solving ability but can be embracive, healthy people who know our place within the cosmos.

Togetherness – This is a piece I really hope we learn. Yes, we can use borders for containment, but we can also work together as a global family. We can pull our best scientific minds together for a medical solution. We can let the medical community and the organizers of the world tell us how to contain the spread by managing our movement and lifestyle. We can learn that all of us have responsibility for all us. We’re in this thing called ‘life’, together.

Vulnerability – The clear recognition that so many of us live without financial margins. For those of us who live with margin, can we imagine what these days feel like when your job disappears, and you still need to feed your children?  Is it time we re-organize our financial structures and move to a guaranteed income?

Earth has a voice – As we hear of polluted skies and water beginning to clear, it’s as if the earth herself has gifted us with time so we might learn how our consumer-oriented, selfish ways have damaged earth. Will we listen to our planet? How will we live going forward?

A slower and simpler life is possible – We are being forced into a slower pace of life. So many of us resist slowness. I hope we will learn to accept it and use it well; more time for reflection, for self-awareness, more time for a small circle of people close to us, more time to be attentive to where we can wisely be helpful. When the restrictions lift, will we have wisdom about what we let back into our lives?

I’m struck about who we hear from each day. Daily we hear from political, scientific and medical leaders. More recently, there is a presence for mental health practitioners. Yet there is no strong and clear spiritual voice. Because of the mailing lists I’m on I have lots of meditative tools and perspectives offered to me but for the general public, when do they get a spiritual perspective on this crisis? How our world has changed and silenced the voice of the Spirit. When will we acknowledge that each person has not only a body and a mind, but also a spirit.  When will we listen to our spiritual teachers and their perspective on how to respond?

So those are a few of the things I’m wondering about. How about you? What are the lessons you’re wondering about?

Stay home, be kind to yourself and others, be well

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder